A naturally combative nature, aggravated by distemper associated
with chronic lower back pain, often produces a personality psychologists
would charitably describe as "difficult". Even his brother-in-law, Stonewall
Jackson, found Daniel Harvey Hill hard to deal with at times, but his most
career-killing confrontations came with the man he needed most to please,
mild-mannered Robert E. Lee.
The breaking point in their turbulent relationship seems to have occured
on May 29, 1863 when the exasperated Lee fired off an angry telegram to
Jefferson Davis from Fredericksburg: "I gave General Hill discretionary
orders from Richmond to apportion his force to the strength of the enemy
and send what could be spared [to me]. He declined to act and requested
positive orders. I gave such orders as I could at this distance [Hill being
in North Carolina at the time]. Now he objects. I cannot operate in this
manner. I request you to cause such orders to be given him as your judgement
dictates..."
Simply put, Lee was taking the highly unusual step of asking the Confederate
President to take Harvey Hill off his hands -- permanently. Less than a
year earlier their first formal meeting at the Dabbs House (the meeting
at which Lee had outlined his plan for driving George B. McClellan's army
away from Richmond to Stonewall Jackson, James Longstreet and the two Hill's)
had been outwardly cordial. Neither of the Hill's said very much at that
meeting until Harvey suggesting that the Confederate attack might better
be directed to the enemy's left, rather than right, flank- as was being
proposed by Lee. Perhaps it was a bit bold and tactless to disagree with
your new army commander, but then Harvey wasn't known for his diplomacy;
and, after all, he'd been asked his opinion, hadn't he? And besides, his
former commander, Joe Johnston, had always been interested in his opinion.
D.H. was forty-one at the time, a West Point graduate (class of '42)
and a Mexican War veteran. Slightly built, with sloping shoulders, he had
a thick, short-cropped beard (which gave him the somewhat sinister look
of a gangster) and the keen, intelligent eye of a former educator, which
he'd been in North Carolina (Superintendent of the NC Military Institute)
before the war.
As a Major General, Joe Johnston had thought enough of him to give him
command of his left wing at Yorktown, where he'd scoffed at McClellan's
grandious seige operations. Later, when the super-cautious "Little Mac"
approached the Confederate capital, Hill wrote his wife sarcastically that,
"The enemy has now ditched himself up to the very gates of Richmond."
James Longstreet, who commmanded Johnston's center at Yorktown, relished
that sort of sarcasm and he and Hill were the best of friends. In his book,
From Manassas to Appomattox, Longstreet wrote that, "Behind the
austere presence of a Major General, [Hill] had a fond of dry humor." Unfortunately,
since he didn't always smile while exhibiting it, many of the other officers
didn't understand or appreciate it.
Hill was without doubt a fighting general. Under his aggressive leadership,
his division would bear the brunt of the fighting for Johnston at Seven
Pines and during several of the Seven Days battles for Lee, suffering 1756
casualties at Malvern Hill (a futile battle which he'd later characterize
as, "not war but murder"), and a staggering 37 percent casualty rate overall
during the Peninsula campaign.
Attesting to his fighting ability, Lee's Gaines'Mill battle report states
that, "[On the left] D.H. Hill charged across the open ground in his front...Gallantly
supported by the troops on his right...he reached the crest of the ridge
and, after a sanguinary struggle, broke the enemy's line, captured several
of his batteries, and drove him in confusion toward the Chickahominy, until
darkness rendered further pursuit impossible."
At Malvern Hill, Lee reported that, "D. H. Hill [again] pressed forward
across the open field and engaged the enemy gallantly, breaking and driving
back his first line but, a simultaneous advance of the other troops not
taking place, he found himself unable to maintain the ground he had gained..."
The report failed to mention the fact that, when Harvey had encountered
Lee and Longstreet on the Quaker Road prior to the start of the battle,
he'd warned Lee about the strength of the Federal position: "If General
McClellan (whom he referred to as "the great mover of his base") is there
in strength, we had better let him alone." But the battle (which Lee always
regretted having fought) took place nevertheless, more or less without
any overall Confederate control.
After his own division had been shattered and driven back, D. H. had
gone in search of other troops to throw into the fray. Coming upon an apparently
leaderless brigade, he'd shooed them forward, then given their political
general (Robert E. Toombs of Georgia) a tongue-lashing: "For shame! Rally
your troops!", he'd shouted over the din. "Where were you when I was riding
up and down your line, rallying your troops?"
Malvern Hill, he'd say years later, had been "a gallant fight...but
as an obstruction to the Federal retreat...[it] amounted to nothing." Assigned
soon afterwards to command the troops defending Drewry's Bluff and the
adjoining area south of the James River, he was faulted by Lee for allowing
McClellan to evacuate his Harrison's Landing base without a fight that
August, (prior to the battle of Second Manassas). Lee wrote Davis from
Orange Court House: "This induces me to say what I have had on my mind
for some time. I fear General Hill is not entirely equal to his present
position. An excellent executive officer, he does not appear to have much
administrative ability. Left to himself, he seems embarassed and backward
to act. If the [local] people would think so, I really believe French would
make the better commander of the Department."
Administrative ability was obviously not Harvey's long suite, and apparently
Davis realized it, because Harvey soon found himself at the head of his
old division again, hurrying to join Lee and Jackson at Manassas (although
they did not arrive in time to take part in the fighting). Assigned as
the rear guard unit on the subsequent march into Maryland, it was one of
Hill's staff officers who carelessly discarded a copy of Lee's famous "lost
order" in a bivouac area south of Frederick. With that document in hand,
McClellan ordered such a rapid pursuit that Lee was forced to order Harvey's
division to turn back from the Hagerstown Road and defend the passes over
South Mountain.
Hill's directed a desperate holding action at Turner's and Fox's gaps
on the 14th of September, buying sufficient time for his brother-in-law
to invest Harper's Ferry. Lee's report states: "The small command of General
Hill repelled the repeated assaults of the Federal army and held it in
check for five hours...the battle continuing with great animation until
night."
Falling back on Sharpsburg late that night, Hill's division was placed
in the middle of Lee's paper-thin line west of the Antietam Creek. That
sector, which included the famous sunken road, was attacked and nearly
overwhelmed by two of old "Bull" Sumner's divisions late on the morning
of the 17th. At the critical moment, Lee's battle report indicates that,
"the heavy masses of the enemy again moved forward, being opposed only
by four pieces of artillery, supported by a few hundreds of men belonging
to different brigades, rallied by General D. H. Hill and other officers."
Longstreet (who was there at the time also, holding his staff officers
horses while they manned one of the cannons) writes that the outcome of
the battle hung in the balance at that moment and that fresh Federal troops
would likely have broken their line. Harvey had three horses shot out from
under him that day and Longstreet writes that he and Hood, "were like game-cocks,
fighting as long as they could stand, engaging again as soon as strong
enough to rise." Being mentioned in the same breath as fighting "Sam" Hood
is certainly indicative of the high regard with which "old Pete" held his
friend Harvey Hill.
When Lee reorganized the Army of Northern Virginia into two large corps
(under Jackson and Longstreet) after Antietam, Harvey's five brigade division
was assigned to his brother-in-laws corps. Then when Major General Ambrose
E. Burnside (who'd replaced McClellan) threatened to cross the Rappahannock
near Fredericksburg in December, Lee moved to occupy the heights on the
south side of the river, overlooking the town, placing Jackson's corps
on the right and Longstreet's on the left. Jackson assigned his brother-in-law's
division to a position further downstream, opposite Port Royal, to guard
against a flank attack which never materialized. Thus Harvey's division
served only as Jackson's reserve during the battle of Fredericksburg, following
which the ANV went into winter quarters.
The following month Lee wrote Davis: "General D.H. Hill is suffering
greatly in health and seems depressed in spirits. Do you think he could
be of service in arousing his [North Carolinian] people and in calming
conflicting political views? If so, I will detach him from this army."
Lee’s reasons for wishing to send Harvey away are unknown, but it may well
be that he was becoming a bit too critical of how Lee was running things.
In any case, Hill was dispatched to Raleigh to work at recruiting there
and, since he'd not rejoin the Army of Northern Virginia, that army's troops
could never again brag that, for the Federals to take Richmond they'd have
to "pass two Hill's and a Longstreet."
But early that spring, with the Yankees threatened the Confederate capital
and Petersburg from south of the James, Longstreet was sent with two of
his divisions to thwart such a move and also collect supplies for Lee's
near-starving army in southern Virginia and North Carolina. Presumably
Harvey assisted those endeavors, because when Longstreet was recalled by
Lee (too late to take part in the battle of Chancellorsville), Harvey was
left in command of that area. It was shortly thereafter, while Lee was
formulating his plans for another invasion, that he sent the May 29, 1863
telegram complaining about Hill's refusal to release enough troops to him.
Hill may not have been entirely to blame for the dispute, however, in that
he should have been in a far better position to assess his needs than Lee
who (as some recent critics have pointed out) had a tendency to wish to
short-change other area commanders in favor of the ANV.
Given their history of stormy relations, it's small wonder that, rather
than D. H. Hill, Lee selected (the far less senior but far more amiable)
A.P. Hill as his third corps commander following the death of Jackson at
Chancellorsville. Commenting on that choice in his book, Longstreet writes:
"As the senior major-general of the army [of Northern Virginia], and by
reason of distinguished services and ability, General [Richard] Ewell was
entitled to the command of the Second Corps, but there were other major-generals
of rank next below Ewell whose services were such as to give them claims
next after Ewell's; so that when they found themselves neglected there
was no little discontent, and the fact that both the new lieutenant-generals
were Virginians made the trouble more grevious."
The loss of the subsequent battle of Gettysburg is often attributed
to Jackson's absence and the failure of his two successors to perform up
to his standards. It would therefore be quite interesting to know whether
"old Jack" would have preferred his brother-in-law over either Ewell and
A.P. Hill.
In any case, Harvey was eventually given a provisional Lieutenant-General's
rank and command of one of Braxton Bragg's Army of Tennessee corps at the
battle of Chickamauga, where- with the legendary Patrick Cleburne as one
of his division commanders and James Buchanan's Vice-President, John C.
Breckinridge, as the other- he performed up to his usual high standards.
At that point his star might have been on the ascendence again, were
it not for the fact that he got himself in trouble immediately after the
engagement by authoring a petition for Bragg's removal for incompetence.
Longstreet, who'd commanded Bragg's left wing in that same battle, writes
that as a result of that petition, "The President came to us on the 9th
of October and called the commanders of the army to meet him at General
Bragg's office. After some talk, in the presence of General Bragg [who
was a close personal friend of Davis'], he made known the object of the
call and asked the generals in turn their opinion of their commanding officer,
beginning with myself. It seemed rather a stretch of authority, even with
a President, and I gave an evasive answer...The condition of the army was
briefly referred to, and the failure to make an effort to get the fruits
of our success, when the opinion was given, in substance, that our commander
could be of greater service elsewhere than at the head of the Army of Tennessee.
Major-General Buckner was called and gave opinion somewhat similar. So
did Major-General Cheatham...and General D. H. Hill, who was called last,
agreed with emphasis to the views expressed by [the] others.
Needless to say, that conference was just about the last straw for the
outspoken Harvey, as far as Jefferson Davis was concerned. A few days later
he was relieved of command, Bragg having provided the necessary justification
by writing that, "possessing some high qualifications as a commander, he
[Hill] still fails to such an extent in others more essential that he weakens
the morale and military tone of his command..."
Harvey demanded a court of inquiry, but was told that would not be necessary.
Rumors of an imminent duel between he and Bragg came to nothing. Then,
when he asked for a new command commensurate with his Lieutenant General's
rank, he was informed that no such position was available and that he should
return home and await a call.
While cooling his heels at home, Davis let his nomination to the provisional
grade of Lieutenant General lapse, without asking the Senate to act on
it. Thus he had been "de-facto" demoted to a major general again, and one
without a command. In February of 1864 he was offered a post in Beauregard's
Department of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. Proceeding to Charleston,
he informed the authorities in Richmond that he'd accept the position,
but only if his written orders included a strong expression of confidence
in him. That demand caused quite a debate within the administration, but
Davis eventually declined to provide such "unprecedented laudatory language"
as Hill required in his orders. And so he returned home again that April,
resigned to the fact that he'd never be called back into active service
or vindicated.
Yet he did make another cameo appearance after that, during Grant's
drive south in May of 1864, when one of the Union’s most inept political
generals, Ben Butler, marched his "Army of the James" up the south bank
of the James River, threatening Drewry's Bluffs and the vital Richmond-Petersburg
Railroad. Acting as a volunteer aide to General Beauregard (who’d also
occupied Davis’ doghouse for most of the war), Harvey helped keep Butler
from seizing either the bluffs or the rail line.
And that summer, when Jubal Early's little army (which would later threaten
Washington) was hurrying to Breckinridge's aid at Lynchburg, Harvey- who
just happened to be in Lynchburg at the time- pitched in (again as a volunteer)
and helped Early and Breckinridge defeat and drive off Union General David
Hunter there.
His final wartime appearance was at the side of his old mentor, Joe
Johnston, when the latter surrendered to Sherman at the James Bennett house,
near Raleigh, NC on April 28, 1865.
After the war, Harvey became a successful newspaper and magazine editor,
then a college president. He died in 1889 at the age of sixty.
Like his Union counterpart, Fitz John Porter, Daniel Harvey Hill's battlefield
skills, though sorely needed, were not fully utilized. In his case it was
partly due to his caustic personality, but also partly the result of the
politics and petty jealousies which plagued the Davis administration. Such
a loyal, hard-fighting Confederate deserved better treatment than that.
